I think it was René Descartes who said, ‘cogito ergo sum.’ Make no mistake I am not at all exalting this philosophy for the mere reason that it’s really no way to live but I do exalt the man, one of my all-time favorite philosophers.

These were the not so humble beginnings of formal solipsism which already existed before him but now it was streamlined for the general public’s use. And it is without a doubt oh so selfish, in fact shockingly so but then again so very common. We see experts proclaim their infallibility every single day be it in matters of finance, mathematics, medicine, faith (the most notorious one) you name it.

But I have a theory of its origins a humble theory at that. I really do think it is like every other bad ideology starting quite innocently with very good and pure intentions until someone finds a way to darken its practice making it all about ME and forgetting its profound object to begin with.

Let me give you a little backdrop to my theory, personally growing up I was a solipsistic child, not selfish and this I must stress .As I grew up it was like the world was a monster doomed to catch up with me and subdue me eventually it wasn’t a matter of if it was a matter of when. In Kenya driving is a truly suicidal sport, all roads are black spots and seeing brains and innards splayed out on the road in a bloody mess(literally) is the norm coincidentally at the time we were also robbed which further heightened my fear of death and imminent rape.

So I created a happy place, a place in my mind where I was free from this fear, for some its recreational drugs, sex, alcohol, work, music or play for me it’s a solipsistic philosophy. That it’s my world and you all are living in it.

This made living bearable news weren’t so frightening because I thought that, ‘that accident isn’t real those people didn’t actually suffer it’s all just to teach me to value my own life and not drive drunk’. Terrorists were an American phenomenon to teach me that bad people exist and that I should be careful. This quite literally helped me sleep at night I mean if all these bad things happened for my benefit it didn’t hurt or scare me as much and it had the added benefit of making me know that since everyone is just a demonstration piece it didn’t hurt them as much and none of these bad things would actually happen to me the only true living thing, right?

Of course sooner rather than later I got a rather frighteningly cold shower of reality with my mother getting in an accident, a cancer threat, increased terrorism in my country to say the very least. But that is not the point although I do advise any one of you who has a child with this same view to quickly get them some fresh perspective because it really can develop into full out madness and that shower is trés cold it would be better to avoid that kind of shock entirely.

My point is solipsism could just maybe be an evolved mental defense mechanism to deal with all the dread this world has to offer. I’m not going to lie my solipsistic realm still exists like the other day a school bus accidentally ran over a 3 year old and I don’t know about you but I’m really trying to not get depressed because that was something else, I literally have no words for the sadness of even the discovery of such a thing.

And I know this makes you even more delicate and fragile, but is it really such a bad quality to want to hold onto our sensitivity and even put up philosophical structures that assist?

I don’t want to ever lose the sheer drain in my face when I hear of stories like the Boko Haram abduction. Because in this world it’s very easy to slip into the mindset of a savage where it’s a jungle and anything goes. This is why my solipsistic realm still exists in fact it must to keep my sanity intact.

Recently I watched a documentary on Edwardian times, the manners and opinions of that era and even its profound impact of this particular part of British history on modern-day Britain and the rest of the world really.
What stuck out to me obviously was the meaning of the term ‘woman’ what she was, what was expected of her and how she was to go about her affairs be it decorum, marriage, family you name it.
The interesting thing about it was that the kind of woman that was generally referred to was the aristocrat. And yet the chains clanked just as loud as for any other woman.
She was to marry well which threw out most hopes of choosing a partner out of love, her reputation was her gilded shield and would forever protect her from shame but of course human nature was very present even then and so you would see women rushing up and down to cover up their dirty linen.
Raising children as their siblings, vacationing in distant lands for 9 months, rendezvousing carefully and in the dingiest parts of town risking life and limb if only to not be cited and be branded she who lost control of her passions and forgot inhibitions. But also the times were changing ushering in new customs, new money and new traditions.
Thus it was made all the more necessary for the aristocrats to hold fast and steady to the olden traditions practicing them with even more fervor than before, which suffocated women especially.
Definitely the history lesson in all that was quite an education for me but I also observed a common denominator in it and my African culture, some Arabic culture and even some Asian cultures. Notice that I am quite literally now talking about totally distant societies that developed to some degree autonomously and yet they all had the common denominator of the mistreatment of women some of which continues on even up till now.
The issue of feminism is definitely not an original one or even a particularly new one, the suffragettes have had their go, so have black women, so have the Arabic women and the struggle continues.
My qualm is why did this kind of unfair system though clearly prescribed differently manage to develop almost everywhere?Its origin is unsettling.
A woman was to be a slave, to cater but not be catered to.it was at times a miracle act if a woman was loved at all in any part of her life whether it be as a daughter, as a wife or even as a mother. Where and why does this resentment for women stem?
Even in religion let me speak of the Bible for that is what I am familiar with, mention of women is few and far apart. I am sure that women too were just as chosen, as brave, eloquent as the men then why weren’t they referred to as much? Even a female prostitute would attract more rebuke as compared to her probably respectable married male consort.
While standing in front of the facts that have burdened some of us for oh so long its astonishing to discover that this kind of inhumanity is naturally occurring in the mean of man.
I have always been devoted to following observations and the correlations they proclaim to wherever they may lead me but it is times like these that the lands they lead me to are stranger and more shocking than anything i had envisioned.
I had always hoped for the world’s sake maybe even humanity’s sake to attribute women’s suffering to a singular demonic person who lived and managed to sway each everyone’s will to bend to his. But to discover that the demoniac quality of desecrating another’s dignity for this long was always a quality we possessed a rite that must be passed that is truly discouraging for the hope of our species and whatever other dark qualities lurk within all of us, not as a matter of choice but simply as a matter of fact.

After studying Actuarial mathematics for 3 years now you would imagine that by now i have an inkling as to what an erdős number is. But alas my ignorance shall astonish you time and time again so be ready.

Finding out about this was a real treat for me, seeing as i hope to get into the paper-writing academic sphere soon enough.Thing is i am not at all an ordinary mathematician as you would have it.I don’t have the brightest brain,won all the mathematical awards that have come my way and neither do i fantasize about numbers all 24 hours of the day, maybe a solid 8.

In fact happenstance landed me at the door of mathematics as you may have already gathered i am most certainly more obsessed with poetry than i am with numbers.But then again mathematics has offered me a more profound view of everything i thought i knew and turned it on its head,revealed truths and unmasked dogmas that i hadn’t imagined before.But if anything, I have found in this craft it is certainly better to practice it with colleagues if only to propel you further when the fuel of perseverance runs out or to contain and share the enthusiasm on the discovery of yet another solution.

So imagine my utter elation when i heard of this Erdős number that is a metric for that very part of mathematics i love the most, collaboration.It started with renown 20th century Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős who wrote an impressive number of mathematical papers and worked on an outstanding number of problems with his peers throughout his mathematical career.

Since he co-authored so many of his works(it is estimated that he had circa 511 collaborators throughout his mathematical career.)The Erdős number was created mainly as tribute to the fallen giant measuring the collaborative distance between anyone and him.

As he has the Erdős number 0,all his direct collaborators have the number 1, and all the direct collaborators’ collaborators have the number 2, and so on and so on.What was just a fun metric measure of how many mathematicians a mathematician has encountered professionally has now transformed the field of all sciences entirely.

The progress of mathematical thought can now be easily documented, tracking down the path of research even that without the confines of mathematics because a considerable number of scholars in other fields too have Erdős numbers.This spirit of collaboration has enticed me even more to my prior mission of writing academically because what two minds can uncover in a second one may never be able to even fathom in an eternity .After all with research its all about more knowledge not self-aggrandizement.

(Thank you abyssbrain for the latter’s recommendation,what a great read.)